Unfair but balanced commentary on tax and budget policy, contemporary U.S. politics and culture, and whatever else happens to come up

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Books I read on the beach

Counting right before and right after my 6 days in Jamaica:

1) Theodore Dreiser, The Titan - I had initially thought that, in my literature book, I would only write about the predecessor volume, The Financier. But this one is in some ways even more interesting sociologically. It foreshadows Ayn Rand (and is much closer to that than to Horatio Alger), except that the author stands somewhat apart from the lead character's regard for his own "greatness." Someone, perhaps David Frum, called this book an Ayn Rand novel written by a socialist, and that's a good way of putting it.

2) Lindsay Cameron, Biglaw - I read this for my first-year reading group, covering 4 novels about law school or legal practice (with the other three being by Lisa McElroy, David Lat, and me). The idea is that we read the books, then meet and talk with the authors, including Ms. Cameron this coming Wednesday. Biglaw does a great job of satirically yet horrifyingly conveying the NYC Biglaw corporate setting. I certainly hope that it's exaggerated for literary effect, rather than meant to be accurate! But I fear that it actually is all too accurate. Something to ask the author about.

3) Edith Wharton, House of Mirth - also for my literature book. Great and very sad; I was half or more of the way through before I saw my line of approach for writing about it. An odd point about the book's structure: it's all about Lily Bart having one chance after another after another after another to succeed in achieving complete financial security. But she throws all of these chances away, sometimes whimsically or self-indulgently, but often based on her actually accepting the Old Money social ideals that everyone else realizes by now are wholly fraudulent. And she's the only one who still actually believes in those ideals (which are aesthetic, not by any means ethical). Okay, Selden believes in them too, but they cost him nothing rather than everything.

4) Booth Tarkington, Alice Adams - interesting Midwestern early 20th century social portrait of a whimsical and ill-starred character, by the author of The Magnificent Ambersons (which I may also, though only briefly, write about in the literature book). I kept picturing a flightier Katherine Hepburn (who played the title part in the movie of Alice Adams), but the book mercifully lacked the movie's saccharine ending.

5) Margaret Millar, A Stranger in My Grave - interesting mid-century noir fiction, although the resolution was a bit pat.

6) Georges Simenon, The Mahe Circle - very dark and perverse, concerning a mad and suicidal obsession. One of his "dur" rather than Maigret novels.

7) Elmore Leonard, 52 Pickup - fun reading for the plane, though it got a bit tense near the end.

8) Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, Vertigo - The novel that was the basis for the immortal Hitchcock film. They apparently wrote it in the hope that he would option it. Set in 1940s France, and with a couple of key plot differences including a different (but also dark) ending. Obviously, I knew what the key plot twist would be before it happened. Quite good in its own way, especially if you come to it from the movie and find the transmutations interesting.

I seem to have used the word "dark" quite a lot in this blog entry. Sorry about that from a writerly standpoint, but it certainly is the word of the day for me these days.

About Me

I am the Wayne Perry Professor of Taxation at New York University Law School. My research mainly emphasizes tax policy, government transfers, budgetary measures, social insurance, and entitlements reform. My most recent books are (1) Decoding the U.S. Corporate Tax (2009) and (2) Taxes, Spending, and the U.S. Government's March Toward Bankruptcy (2006). My other books include Do Deficits Matter? (1997), When Rules Change: An Economic and Political Analysis of Transition Relief and Retroactivity (2000), Making Sense of Social Security Reform (2000), Who Should Pay for Medicare? (2004), Taxes, Spending, and the U.S. Government's March Towards Bankruptcy (2006), Decoding the U.S. Corporate Tax (2009), and Fixing the U.S. International Tax Rules (forthcoming). I am also the author of a novel, Getting It. I am married with two children (boys aged 16 and 19) as well as four (!) cats. For my wife Pat's quilting blog, see Patwig’s Blog.